The field of the present invention relates to machines for assembling subassemblies and components together such as a torque converter case with a valve body unit, and particularly relates to such machines capable of efficiently coping with changes in components or subassemblies.
There has recently been more demand for the production of goods in prescribed batches with a number of variations in the goods between batches in order to meet the various desires of consumers. The assembly machines tend to be changed often in the course of producing multiple batches of goods with variations therebetween. In order to meet such requirements, a workpiece attach/detach device was developed as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Publication No. 60-51980(1985). In the device, an assembling unit called a head is supported on a horizontal circular rail so that the unit can be moved along the rail. About a quarter of the circular rail is cut off from the other and movable up and down relative to remainder of the rail. A workpiece, which is an assembly part, is held by the assembling unit on the unmovable portion of the circular rail. The unit is therafter moved along the rail so that the unit is placed on the vertically movable portion of the rail. The movable portion of the rail is then moved down to a processing station at which prescribed assembly work is carried out. However, if a number of units are required to cope with a large number of variations, the whole device would be large and heavy. For that reason, the assembling units, except the one supported on the rail, are housed separately from the device. As a result, exchanging the assembling units efficiently becomes difficult.